In fact, there are many who think the benefits of LRT are seriously overblown and a love affair with trains has led to an an ugly step-sister view of buses that just isn't fair.

Bus advocates say there are many worldwide examples of terrific bus-rapid transit systems, they come at a cheaper price, and technology makes rubber wheeled transit more efficient and green.

"The majority of these projects underestimate the cost by 40 per cent and overestimate the ridership by 50 per cent," said John Shortreed, professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Waterloo.

He taught and did research in transportation and transit planning for 32 years. He was part of a citizens group in Kitchener-Waterloo that unsuccessfully fought a proposal to build light-rail there.

"LRT in the last 20 years has become a fashion statement. The attitude is that you've gotta have light rail if you're a big city."

In June, the province awarded $300 million to build LRT between Kitchener and Waterloo and bus rapid transit to Cambridge.

Shortreed, who has worked on large-scale transit projects and developed models to analyze ridership and costs, says neither Kitchener nor Hamilton has the downtown employment to justify LRT.

It takes heavy congestion and high parking rates to force people out of their cars, he says.

Bus backers say bus rapid transit, when done right, can bring all the benefits of LRT at a much lower cost. That means higher tax subsidies for LRT systems, says Andy Haydon, former regional chair of Ottawa-Carleton, who is a tireless opponent of a light-rail line in Ottawa.

He says Ottawa's BRT collects 50 per cent of its revenue from the fare box while Portland's lauded LRT in Oregon collects just 17 per cent.

"There is not one way that trains are better than buses. It doesn't matter how you look at it."

He says bus systems are cheaper to build and run, new-breed buses beat trains environmentally and that just as many people will hop on a well-run bus line as a train.

"The essence of transit is speed. People will get on anything if it's faster than a car," Haydon said.

In 2008, Ottawa's BRT carried 123 rides per capita, versus 89 for Calgary's LRT, 83 for Edmonton's LRT and 79 for the elevated LRT in Vancouver.

But buses suffer an image problem. They aren't thought to be sexy, progressive, urbane or high-class.

"Cities seem to decide it will be LRT and then work backwards to justify it. It's all based on smelly, stinky buses. That's what people think."

Hamilton is moving full-steam ahead on planning, design and engineering for a light-rail line stretching from Eastgate Square to McMaster University.

While Metrolinx, the province's transit planning agency for the Toronto and Hamilton areas, has not formally committed to LRT for the city, officials there know Hamilton isn't even paying lip service to studying buses.

Haydon, credited with being one of the key architects of Ottawa's BRT system when he chaired the city's transit commission, thinks that's a big mistake.

At 77, Haydon is now retired, but the blunt and down-to-earth engineer who served in municipal politics for 25 years, has adopted it as his mission to fight LRT.

He pores through transit data across North America, compiles position papers, lobbies politicians and fights with the local newspaper.

He says it's easy to add capacity with buses, by putting more on the road and hopscotching them in and out of stations. It's harder to add train cars because they have to be no longer than the platform.

Buses can be fed into neighbourhoods, while trains stay on a main-corridor track. He says evidence shows every time you force riders to transfer, ridership drops 25 to 30 per cent.

Haydon says modern buses look as sleek as trains and have all the amenities, such as low-boarding floors, multi-loading doors and electronic payment.

Haydon acknowledges bus systems require more drivers, but counters LRT requires higher-paid engineers and technicians to monitor and service the electrical, control and safety systems.

"It's a strange phenomenon with rail people. It's like a sickness. They are so committed to rail, they can't look at anything else. But if it's better in people's mind's eye, that's hard to beat."

Shortreed in Kitchener agrees people seem mesmerized by LRT.

"People seem to think it will put our city on the map. It would make more sense to build a giant tower like they did in Dubai. That would put the city on the map and if it took 15 years to fill it, fine. LRT will be costing money all that time."

There are some who think governments shouldn't invest in public transit at all.

Randal O'Toole, a senior economist with the Thoreau Institute, an environmental think-tank in Portland, Ore., and a lecturer at Yale and University of California Berkeley, says public transit has consistently lost market share to cars, despite enormous investments.

Even transit-oriented cities like New York and Chicago have seen public transit's share of passenger travel fall over the last 25 years, he says. O'Toole is especially critical of LRT.

"Light-rail is good for one thing, spending lots of extra cash."

He says Portland's LRT, often held up as a best practice, is battling falling ridership and that development along the line is only due to $2-billion in subsidies.

"Subsidies have led to development, not light rail. Light rail is an excuse to subsidize."

Costs

The U.S. General Accounting Office estimates LRT costs at about $34 million per kilometre for infrastructure and vehicles, while BRT costs $14 million.

Operating costs are about $90 per vehicle hour for BRT versus $250 an hour for LRT.

Metrolinx projects it will cost $12.5 million a year to run an LRT line, compared to about $4.8 million for BRT.

BRT success stories

A 2003 study by the Transportation Research Board in Washington, D.C., concluded that: "BRT systems can attract new riders to transit and induce transit-oriented land use and economic development in a broad variety of environments. Virtually all new, fully integrated BRT system investments have experienced the same type of ridership increases previously thought to be the exclusive province of rail transit."

The study looked at Ottawa and Vancouver, along with 12 systems in the United States, three in Australia, three in Europe and six in South America.

Economic development

* Ottawa's Transitway BRT has led to up to $1-billion US in new construction around transit stations.

* Pittsburgh's East Busway created $302 million in new and improved development, 80 per cent of which was clustered at stations.

* Property values near Brisbane's South East Busway grew 20 per cent; properties within 10 kilometres of stations grew two to three times faster than those at greater distance.

BRT ridership

* Los Angeles had a 26 per cent to 33 per cent gain in riders, one-third of which was new riders;

* Vancouver had 8,000 new riders, 20 per cent of whom previously used automobiles;